Following on from Descriptive Writing, this session looks at the three perspectives in writing:
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First person (I)
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Second person (you)
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Third person (s/he)
It explores how each is used in literature and why, and talks briefly about the unreliable narrator.
Start by watching the lecture above.
Perspective Exercise
Part I
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Think of an event in your life.
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Take 30 minutes to write a short description of that event in either first or third person.
Part II
Take another 30 minutes to write either the same event or a different event using the opposite literary perspective. If you wrote in first person before, write in third person now, and vice versa.
Consider which perspective you felt more comfortable writing in.
Book Recommendations Based on Perspective
If you go to these books on Amazon, you can usually preview the first few pages by clicking the book cover on the left, where it says 'look inside'.
First Person
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Binding by Bridget Collins
World War Z by Max Brooks
Second Person
Life's Lottery by Kim Newman
Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North
Any of the Fighting Fantasy series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone
Third Person
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern